


Snow-washed pictures

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 23:57:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5517881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>so its almost christmas now and I was wondering if you like to write a christmas prompt? It's one where emma never really had a wonderfull christmas and now that she is with henry and regina they decide to let emma see the wonderfull side of christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow-washed pictures

**Author's Note:**

> asked by fuck-it-i-am-unicorn via tumblr

Congrats, you have been the only one sending me a Christmas prompt: P Thank you for it, hope you like it!

The old photographs were almost erased due to how they have been stored for years, their yellowish paper thick under Regina’s fingers as she caressed them, her eyes going from one to another, smiling slightly when, even in the poor condition they were, a set of green eyes and infectious smile could be seen from time to time. With a heavy sigh she looked at the final end of the pile, the smile now mostly disappeared and a tired and scornful gaze were now reflecting the light, pale hands hugging a lithe body as they did so.

The photographs had been on the cardboard boxes Emma had arrived to Storybrooke with even months after the final move of the blonde to the brunette’s house, a house that they were starting to consider her own little by little. Regina hadn’t asked about the boxes nor had she tried to coax Emma into an explanation of what they were. But short than a month ago Henry had found them and the ever curious teen had asked his blonde mother about them, Emma’s smile disappearing quickly, almost in the same way it disappeared from one picture to another.

“I don’t want to talk about it” She had whispered and Regina had sighed in the same exact way she was doing now, brown eyes looking at the presents and gifts visible on the pictures, on how Emma was ever positioned far away from them, her eyes never on the children and adults that surrounded her but in something far away from those frozen memories.

_“It didn’t matter where I was”_ Regina could almost hear Emma’s voice, thick and soft and guarded. They hadn’t talked about it, not exactly, but the blonde had started talking one night, when they both had been pretending that the other was asleep, Regina knowing that that was what Emma needed, for that moment at least _“They always took a photo, no matter which house or family. When I was little a copy of it would go to my file and as I grew up I started being the one asking for it. I don’t have them all and once I started being older not in every house I appeared in the photos, too problematic maybe, but it was a way for me to remember Christmas, to know that another year had passed”_

Regina hadn’t asked; with closed eyes she had waited until Emma had shifted on the bed to hug her from behind, knowing full well that the blonde knew she had heard everything, knowing also that Emma would remain silent, pretending.

_“I guess”_ The blonde had said once Regina hugged her, strong hands tracing circles on the younger woman’s stomach, lips ghosting their way up the blonde’s neck, never staying more than a few seconds, letting the blonde keep pretending that Regina was still asleep. _“I guess that at some point I stopped believing in Christmas and I just started counting the years.”_

Regina put the final photo back on its box and hugged her midriff, almost in the same fashion a pre-teen Emma had done back in an undetermined house in the middle of nowhere.

She had also had problems back on the enchanted forest; problems on believing that fairies could really grant wishes, problems on thinking that she was worth the tiniest bit of happiness that elves could maybe grant if someone searched hard enough between the forest’s trees. She could remember learning about Christmas and sniff smugly, thinking that such festivities was as void and pointless as the many others the forest had had.

And yet when Henry had come and she had started watching films she had discovered the power that Christmas could bring, the joy and magic that it wasn’t exactly real and yet was more powerful than anything else. She still thought that those films in where Christmas was glorified were nothing but stupidities but she relished on those moments between Henry and herself in where she could imagine her own smile and twinkling eyes back when fairies still granted wishes to girls like her.

And now… Emma.

Biting her lips she caressed her collarbone, magic cracking slightly against her skin as she did so, soft purple sparkles lighting her face from below. She hadn’t tried to talk to Emma about that quiet night; she knew the blonde wasn’t ready the same way she hadn’t been until the sheriff had managed to get her talking to Archie, until the two of them had actually begun talking about past mistakes and misunderstood words that could have been much more if they had tried hard enough. She knew Emma and so she had picked up the boxes and store them, not saying anything when Henry had asked about those boxes, looking at them and thinking on that girl that by the age of ten had had an adorable smile that was starting to disappear, green mischievous eyes turning serious far too soon, far too young.

“Mom?” Henry entered in the bedroom, a frown on his brows appearing when she saw the glazed gaze of the former queen. Regina cleared her throat and nodded, a betraying tear almost falling down her cheek with the movement. Henry pointed behind him, where the main room of the house was, half-closed door staring back at Regina the moment the former queen looked at it. “She is waking up”

She had thought long and hard about the photos, about what they meant for Emma, what they had finally turned out to mean back when the blonde was nothing else but an orphan.

_“Once I settled down I went back and asked for my file”_ Emma had said the following night, resuming her explanation as if nothing had happened, as if Regina was really asleep. “ _They had it alongside with the photos. I asked for them doubting they would give them back to me, but they did”_

At the end the pictures had been a representation of hope, hope of being one year near the moment Emma would be free of the system, a year less to be able to walk and never look back. The pictures told Regina far more than what Emma would have ever told about her life. And precisely because of that the brunette had started to look at them, searching for something she really didn’t know what it was until Henry had found her, glazed eyes and trembling bottom lip, a sob on the back of her throat as a defiant fifteen-year-old Emma looked back at her, far too young, far too much.

“How about we show her?” The boy had asked and Regina had agreed, not even bothering to ask the teen how he knew.

“Let’s go” She said, coming back to the present moment, a smile on her lips as she looked at her son. “Don’t do any sound”

The teen rolled his eyes but followed his brunette mother, a camera on his hands, a soft tentative smile on his lips.

Because, Regina thought when the two of them entered in the master bedroom, a sleepy eyed Emma looking back at her, a frown on her eyes as Regina approached the bed, soft kisses and lingering caresses, there were still too many memories they could create, too many pictures they could make. And as Emma hugged her tightly, the sound of a camera behind the two of them and Henry’s faux scream of horror when they kissed again, Regina knew what she had been searching for; warmth.

Warmth she desired to give, to receive, to have.

“Happy Christmas” She whispered and Emma nodded just once, Henry hugging the two of them a second before. “Happy Christmas”


End file.
